Our aims for Maths teaching (Intent)

The ability to use and apply Mathematical skills confidently is key to a child's future success. We aim for all of pupils to develop a love for Maths and an excitement for learning. At Barlow, we aim to give every child the tools they need to understand numbers and to carry out calculations efficiently. We support children in applying these skills in problem solving situations.

 The belief behind our Maths teaching and in particular Power Maths is that being successful in Maths is not just about rote-learning procedures and methods, but is instead about problem solving, thinking and discussing. Many people feel they were taught Maths in a way that was about memorising facts and formulas and calculation methods, then having to apply them without any real understanding of what or how these methods actually work.

How we teach Maths

Power Maths includes practice questions to help children develop their fluency and recall of facts as well as their understanding. Power Maths uses growth mindset (the belief that everybody’s abilities can be developed through hard work) characters to prompt, encourage and question children. They spark curiosity, engage reasoning, secure understanding and deepen learning for all.

We use Power Maths to support us delivering the Mastery approach to Mathematics across the school except in Reception who follow a Mastery approach using the NCETM Mastery and Numberblocks materials.  This is fully compliant with the new national curriculum and also provides a range of activities to support the pupils' learning through Maths Mastery. We use Power Maths to help develop a deeper understanding of mathematics through: fun practical activities, exploration, discussion, problem solving and reasoning.

Power Maths is a resource that has been designed for UK schools based on research and experience of teaching and learning around the world and here in the UK. It has been designed to support and challenge all pupils, and is built on the belief that everyone can learn maths successfully.

Alongside this approach we also support the children using Big Maths resources on a weekly basis. This supports the regular recall and revision of number operations, facts and problems and helps to support the develop their long term memory, embedding their learning. Big Maths includes a fun, timed challenge that the children aim to ‘beat’ each week, competing only against themselves.